Research Experiences for Undergraduates
Research Report Guidelines
Before the end of the REU summer program, each participant is expected to complete a report of research activities carried out during the program. The following timetable and format guidelines should be followed when preparing these reports. If you have any questions, please contact Kevin Ingersent or Selman Hershfield.
Timetable
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Mon Jul 7 1–3 pm | Written communications workshop, led by Dr. Dianne Cothran, Dial Center for Written and Oral Communication Bring to this session a description (three or four well-organized paragraphs) of the purpose, plan, and scope of your REU research project. This description, which may eventually form the introduction to your end-of-project report, should be accessible to your non-expert peers. It should be prepared with a word processor (use whatever system you'll employ for preparing your final report) and printed double-spaced. Use of literature citations is optional. |
| Powerpoint slides for the workshop. | |
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Mon Jul 14 1–3 pm | Written communications workshop, led by Dr. Dianne Cothran, Dial Center for Written and Oral Communication |
| Fri Jul 25 | By 3:00 p.m., submit two hard copies of a substantially complete first draft to Kevin Ingersent in 2162 NPB. Also provide a copy to your research advisor by a mutually agreed time. |
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Mon & Tue, Jul 28 & 29 | Revise report in light of readers' comments |
| Wed Jul 30 | Submit final version of report to Kevin Ingersent by 1 pm |
Report Format
 | The report should be roughly five to ten pages long (when printed in double-spaced format). For general guidance on style and format, please refer to the AIP Style Manual and to the handouts distributed by Dianne Cothran during the written communications workshop. |
| | Your report should be prepared in an electronic format that is readily converted to PDF (Microsoft Word or LaTeX, for instance) so that it can be archived on the REU Web pages. |
| | The report should contain the conventional front matter: a title, the authors and their affiliations, and an abstract. |
| | The main body of the text should begin with an introduction (perhaps 20% to 35% of the total text) which outlines the "big picture": why your research area is interesting and important, and how your specific project fits into the larger scheme of things. |
| | The bulk of the report should focus on your research project. What did you actually do? What were your results-successes and failures? If you were to continue with the project, what would the next steps be? |
| | Citations to the appropriate literature should be included throughout the report. Follow the citation format in Table II of the AIP Style Manual with the following exceptions: (1) items which would be underlined in a typed manuscript should be italicised in your word-processed document; (2) journal volume numbers should be in bold face. |
| | You should feel free to document technical details (computer codes, circuit designs, data, etc.) in appendices. The appendices will not count towards the 5-10 page length guideline. |
| | One of the major traps to avoid is writing at a level suitable only for the experts in your research area. If you do this, the majority of your readers will quickly be lost. As a general principle, you should target the greater part of your report to the least expert members of your potential audience. In this case, you should aim to be understood by one of your peers (an intelligent undergraduate physics major) who has no specialist knowledge of your project. |
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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants DMR-9820518, DMR-0139579, and DMR-0552726. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. |